Pop A Color

I loved this photo of Brooke, but the color of her coat overwhelmed the detail of the butterfly on her hands.
Here's a super simple way to take a color photograph and highlight a key element as the focal point.

1. Open your photo and duplicate so as to preserve your original.

2. Now click Hue/Saturation in your layers palette and move the slider to the left to -100.

3. Make sure your Foreground colors are in their default position of Foreground=Black and Background=White.

4. Go to Edit and "Fill" your layer mask with white.

5. Select a soft round brush with black as your foreground and begin to add back the colors you want in your photo image by simply brushing over. Don't forget to zoom-in to be as accurate as possible.

6. If you make any mistakes such as "over the edges" not a problem, just reverse your brush color to white and clean up any errors.

I added another touch to this photo using Alien Skin Exposure.
I chose "Color Film" and then chose...Modify>Soften>Subtle to get a bit more of a dreamy effect.

Finished Photo

Colors of the Rainbow

I was out in a bad storm last week but by the time we were almost home the most beautiful rainbow appeared. I hadn't see a full one in a long time and it was so vibrant. By the time we reach home I was able to get a picture of it before it faded completely. So I just had to share it with you since I am going to tell you about a wonderful color-picker program.

The past two months have been an adventure in computer issues. My laptop died about 2 months back and I thought there was no hope for it. So I have been borrowing a computer so I could continue to design. Well as anyone knows when your computer crashes or just down right dies you lose everything you haven't backed.
I was been pretty good at backing up everything on my EHD but I never thought to backup my favorite web links. The ones I go to everyday (like ScrapStreet) I know by heart but there are tons that I didn't remember. So along with working with a computer that is not mine I had to research out those favorite places again.
On one of my researches was for a Color picker as this is a great resource in designing kits. I found some but I was not happy with them, but finally I found COPASO

It has all the features that I like in a color-picker program plus as a bonus it is free. I am still learning it myself so I can't really demo it for you but there is a wonderful video demo on the web site that you can check out.
So two things I learned out my computer experience not only have your files backed up but somewhere you need to have a copy of all your favorite sites.
Now the good news is that the computer I thought was beyond fixing wasn't!!! Yeah, I just got it back last week from being in the hands of computer geeks for 3 weeks. Turns out it was a bad stick of memory, we popped out that baby and replaced it now we are as good as new. Best news of all was it only cost me $25.00.
Have a Great Day and Backup you system today!

Sunday Exhaustion!

Happy Sunday all! Sorry to have missed chatting with you all on Friday--I was off at CHA enjoying being all wrapped up in scrappy goodness. What a sensory overload it is to see all of the new scrap items all in one space! Layouts, projects, papers, and goodies are everywhere. As a hybrid scrapper, I have the joy of both worlds. I loved seeing digital designers names on some yummy paper scrapping lines. It is fabulous to see how well designed they really are and how fun it is to see them glittered, flocked, raised on traditional paper.

But what was the most fun was seeing so many "imaginary" friends come to life. My son is pretty sure that mommy's computer friends are just the same as his imaginary ones, living just in my mind. But CHA was a festival of friends! Not only did I meet up with the gals we knew were going to be there, but we had a bit of time to be starstruck by meeting some talented ladies who we admire online.

Here is a shot of us as we roamed around yest:



Now I am off for a nap and then to dive right in with my scrapping! I am soooooo motivated to finish up a freebie for all my blogging buddies and scrappy friends before I start using up all my current supplies to make room for my new stuff.

Have a super scrappy day!

Hey hey it's Saturday

Another week gone by already, half way through summer and my feet haven't touched the ground yet. Our local weather here in the Uk and Wales in particular is warmish, cloudy with rain. It always rains in the valleys of Wales, it's why they are so lush and green. we grow good lamb here as well as the rare Black Beef. There is a local butcher who butchers his own cattle, and we get wonderful fresh meat from him. along with a variety of beef sausage that he makes to his own recipe ummyum.

From here at home we have a view over the Amman Valley and over the otherside of the mountain we have the Towy Valley, We live at the highest point around these here immediate parts. How do I know this, well the signal mast for the whole of West and South Wales is just at the top of the road. You can see that mast for miles and miles away.

On a note for scrapbooking, we went to the BigPit coal mining museum. It was up until recently a working mine, but went the way of most of the mines in Wales. Redundant.!! However they spruced it up added bits for a visitor centre and opened it up to the public.
You get a film show giving you the history of the pit and mining in general, then you get kitted out with hard hat and lantern and you are taken down the mine shaft in a cage and taken round the tunnels. Absolutely fascinating.
You can see where they stabled the pit ponies, who never saw light of day and went blind because of the darkness, saw the medical room where sick or injured miners would go and take a lie down.
Young children had worked down there too, in this darkness, they would open and shut the doors for the miners to come through with the coal trucks. This would be there job all day, if they had a candle or light there they would be lucky and if it blew out they were in total and I mean total darkness.
When we got to the end of the tour they turned out the lights to show us how dark it is down there. Really it is total darkness, you cannot tell up from down and your sense of balance is disturbed. You have nothing to orientate yourself with. Truly you cannot see your hand in front of your face.

It was a very fascinating place to visit, I wanted to take photos to scrap, but we were not allowed to use cameras i n the mine tunnels for fear of explosive gases. When we came out it was predictably dark and raining cats and dogs so not even a photo of the outside.
I hope to go back there and take photos of everything outside, Go and see where the miners had baths when they finished. Most would go home in the 'black' as they call it.
This has been a very successful enterprise for the mine. It gave the miners chance to retrain, so instead of being out of work they had the opportunity to become keepers and tour guides of the mines. Brilliant tour guides too as there is nothing they don't know about the way things were there.
All of this and it's FREE. All museums are free to visit in Wales.
Hope you have enjoyed this slightly different take on the saturday blogpost. Will be back next Saturday with some new kits being released soon as well as highlights form around the forums and Galleries at Scrapstreet
For a little treat for you here is a small gift from Sue Wood Designs at Scrapstreet

Thursday Thought - The Journey

So Thursday again. It is late pm for me to post this where I live, but still early in your day across the pond in USA!

I am late because I went on a journey....2 hours to go and 2 hours to come back. Not a journey I had chosen or somewhere I wanted to go, but a journey to accompany someone I love..a journey for them.

I got to thinking about the different journeys we do in our lives, the small daily ones, the special ones, the sad or happy ones. I thought it might be good to scrap a journey, so here are some quotes to get your inspiration moving:

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. - Lao-Tzu

A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles. — Tim Cahill

Life to me is a journey - you never know what may be your next destination. - David Russell

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page. — St. Augustine

There are two classes of travel: first class and with children. — Robert Benchley

It is not the destination that is important in this life, but the journey - Unknown

I wish you a very good journey to an unknown you've never seen - Pieter V Admiraal

Here is a small freebie from me...some word art you can use on your LO!



Click here and enjoy your journey!

Wednesday Inspiration - carnival rides

I don't know about you, but summer around here is the season of carnivals. There is one every week in every town and they seem to travel all around our county until the true county fair. So let's get you ready for your carnival photos!

Here are your carnival-type (or similar theme) freebies this week:

**dafont.com: Carnival

**Ropes -n- Chains Photoshop Brushes

**Makeup & Face Sketches Photoshop Brushes

**"KidPrint" - go to freebies and scroll down

Here's how I did it:

Texturing Photos

Your Digital Scrap book papers are not just for scrapping. Many professional photographers have taken textures to a new level and so can you by simply adapting some of your background (textured not flat) scrap papers onto your photographs. Depending on what look you want to achieve, the sky's the limit.

The process is simple enough so below are the basic steps. Feel free to experiment along the way. I find that the more subtle your effect is the better it looks in print. I have over exaggerated this image so that you get the idea. My objective is to give this image a vintage vignette look and feel for a card-making project.

1. Open your photograph
2. Open a digital paper with texture of your choosing.

3. Now copy and paste your digital background paper over your photo.
4. With your background layer selected, start to play with your Blend Modes in the layers pallet. You can scroll through your options with your down arrow key.
5. Lower your opacity but don't worry about your subject being textured. That's the next step.
6. With a soft brush, erase over all the areas that you don't want texture on, like faces, arms, etc. In the example, I've erased the texture from the flower.
7. Next go to your Adjustment Layer and select Hue and Saturation.
8. Move your sliders around until you get the look you want or leave it as is.
9. That's pretty much it unless you'd like to use the Burn and Dodge tools on your edges.
If you'd like the flower photo in high resolution you can grab it here. It's one of mine taken in early spring of a wildflower.

If you would like to see further examples of this technique by well known Professionals, here's a few links.
Jess De Rox
Nicole Van
Red Leaf